Loki of Nowhere
by theicesculpture
Summary: Loki died on Svartalfheim and Hela offers him a deal: kill Thanos in return for his life. It is only when the Norns visit that Loki realises how he can achieve this – he can wield the Tesseract but there is only one person he has a chance of allying with who will be able to wield another of the Infinity Gems. That person is Tony Stark.
1. Chapter 1

Loki opened his eyes and there was colour.

He hadn't expected to see colour, but then again, he hadn't expected to be able to open his eyes. His vision was blurry and his body didn't feel quite as solid as it normally did. His chest held the evidence of the wound Kurse had inflicted but for some reason the pain had disappeared.

Loki's thoughts were slow and sluggish. It was imperative that he should connect the dots; he was distinctly aware of that.

He'd been stabbed. Skewered like an animal carcass. But at least he'd had the wits to bring down Kurse with him as he died.

Ah.

So that was it then – he was dead. It should have been obvious. He should have realised the instant he opened his eyes.

A bird cawed from somewhere behind him and it occurred to Loki that his post-death continuance did not exist in isolation. Although the entirety of the sky was a cloudless void filled with nothing but soft white light, the rest could not be said for wherever it was that he happened to be. Grass was beneath his body as he lay flat on the ground and when he sat up he was able to spot distant trees growing either side of him on land that faded away into the nothingness of the surrounding space. There was a subtle path that ran between the two forests, one in the grass worn down by trampling footsteps rather than a path that was there by design. When he turned, a path that was very much there by design led to the largest hall he'd ever laid eyes upon. Its golden walls did not gleam in the same way as the royal halls of Asgard. Whereas Asgard's walls were built to demonstrate power and might, these walls radiated invitation and warmth.

Loki got to his feet and began walking the stone path towards the halls but doubt that he may be walking into a trap seized him.

The crux of the matter was the question of where he was. He could not be upon Helheim, else there should be little but ghosts and mists. If this was a field of Folkvangr then it should have been filled with slain warriors and the possibility of this being Folkvangr or Valhalla was out of the question. He was no true warrior, and even if he were, the Allfather would never grant him such a gift.

Loki eyed the golden building some more, attempting to pinpoint more details as evidence to deduce what form of the afterlife he had stumbled across.

There were no figures entering or leaving, only two large inviting doors at the centre of the hall.

After supposing that he had nothing left to lose, Loki walked towards the doors with the most dignity that a man with a gaping hole in his chest could.

When he reached the doors of the gates they opened before he could touch them and there, with a smile on her face despite her wet eyes, was Frigga.

Loki didn't know who moved first, himself or his mother, but it did not matter. Their arms were wrapped around each other and Loki's shoulders were shaking with suppressed sobs.

"Mother…"

"My son..." Frigga was warm and solid and the sound of her voice alone next to his ear was enough to diminish immediate concerns about his new surroundings. Loki could not remember the last time he had been touched like this. "Oh, Loki…" Frigga sighed. "I have never been so conflicted about seeing you. I am incredibly happy that you are in my arms and I am prouder of you than I have ever been and yet I cannot help but wish that you lived a full life to a ripe old age."

Frigga moved her arms from his neck to his shoulders, and she gently pushed him back to look him in the eye.

"And I am happy to see you," Loki replied, "in spite of it all."

"Oh, Loki..." Frigga said again and wrapped her arms around him for the second time.

"Mother?" Loki asked with hesitancy in his voice once Frigga had lessened her hold.

"Yes?"

"Where are we?"

"I do not doubt that you lack the intelligence to figure it out, my son. If you find yourself failing, you may hold your self-regard as responsible for your lack of judgement rather than your intellect."

Loki floundered.

"Or try thinking about it differently, my son. Rather than asking in which realm your soul would rest, try the question of where my soul would come to rest."

"Valhalla?" Loki blurted out. He let out a quiet scoff. "You being in Valhalla I can believe. But myself? That's not possible, I–"

"Shh... Listen to me and listen very carefully."

Loki stilled and closed his mouth. Frigga continued.

"You died in battle. You died a noble death, sacrificing yourself for another and slaying a terrible monster as you did so."

"Tricks," Loki muttered.

"Tricks or not, the fact remains that you still did it. Whether or not you consider yourself to be a warrior does not matter – you died a warrior's death. All those souls who have died a warrior's death are eligible for Valhalla and you, my dear boy, deserve to be here just as much as anybody else."

"I don't deny that I died what can be loosely interpreted as a warrior's death. But Odin selects by hand which souls pass to where–"

"You do not think that your father would grant you eternity in Valhalla?"

"The man you call my father would have granted me a death sentence if he had his way."

Frigga took his hands in hers. "He thought it kinder than spending the rest of your lifetime cooped up in that cell of yours. He thought he meant well. I don't believe he would have been able to carry out the sentence, although he most likely overestimated his self-control regarding that aspect." She frowned. "Sometimes your father's judgement can be incredibly misguided and the man is too stubborn for his own good. You're both similar in that retrospect."

"Are we not going to acknowledge the great incongruence between his punishment for my actions and his punishment for Thor's actions?" Loki snapped and dropped her hands. A moment passed and then he lifted his lips apologetically. "I must be a terrible son to only have been so recently reunited with you before baiting you into an argument."

"Nonsense," Frigga said. "Hearing you call me mother has been one of the greatest gifts I have received. I cannot hold it against you that even while dead it seems we still have unresolved family issues." She smiled sadly. "Although I question your priorities," she teased, "as it was only a few moments past that your former life ended and yet you are equally as fixated on finding actions of your father to criticise."

"Yes, well," Loki said flatly, "I cannot be expected to radically change for no reason other than death."

"You seem remarkably calm about that, my son."

"I thought that I'd die after I fell from the Bifrost and I have thought that I would surely die countless times since. The fear caused by the anticipation of it made dying rather anticlimactic in the end."

Frigga stared him directly in the eye. "And are you satisfied?"

"What does it matter?"

"It matters to you; therefore it matters to me. Are you satisfied with how you died?"

Loki paused before answering.

"I would have preferred not to have met my end by such a witless beast."

"You know that your half-answers do not escape my notice."

Loki let out a huff of air.

"I do not regret it."

"I'm glad to hear it. It was an incredibly selfless thing to do – not that you'd admit it. Have I mentioned that I'm proud of you? Your father is too, you know. You questioned why he would grant your soul a place in Valhalla and yet you more than qualify for each of the terms."

"Then he must be willing to offer Valhalla to anyone foolish enough to die for his son."

"I remind you that Thor is not his only son. And I have sound reason to suspect that even if you did not die for Thor's sake, your father would not have abandoned your soul."

Loki dropped his eyes.

"Duty always defeated sentiment to him."

"I need you to know something," Frigga said with urgently. "I need you to know that despite all the people who thought there'd be no redeeming you, that imprisoning someone who can't be reformed would be futile, they were wrong. Your father was one of them. He loved you but his love is very flawed. That's why I had to persuade him to imprison you instead – not that he needed much persuading on that matter; I think he wanted to be persuaded. I knew there was still good in you. I wanted you to have a chance to prove that to everyone who ever doubted it and to yourself. And you did. Only," she wiped at her eye, "you ended up having to die to prove it." Frigga cupped his face. "Despite you being so intelligent and insightful you can be incredibly dense at times," she said. "How could you believe that your blood would not make you family? How could you believe that your actions would remove our love for you? Your father and I may not love some of your actions but never doubt that they could remove our love for you."

Loki temporarily lost the ability to conjure words.

"Speaking of your actions, my dear boy, I think it's past time that we had a long talk about them. Without any interruptions this time. Shall we take a seat?"

Frigga stepped aside to beckon him further into the hall, towards one of many hundreds of tables that occupied a room so large he could see where it ended. None of the warriors drinking or feasting appeared to take much notice of them as they took their seats in a secluded corner by a window.

She sat and waited patiently and Loki was powerless to refuse.

"I..." Loki's voice was dry. "I don't know what you want from me."

"I want you to tell me the whole tale in your own time. I only know fragments of it, bits here and there and extracts from what we discussed in your cell, but my understanding is incomplete. I want to know and understand why you did such terrible things, Loki. I need to know what happened to my son."

Loki clenched his hands together tightly.

"There's no rush," she said gently, "we have the whole of eternity. I will try not to interrupt you."

"I… I don't know where to begin."

"May I suggest that you start with why you let go?"

He grasped for a drink.

* * *

Loki talked in sporadic clusters. He spent more time staring at his hands than he did talking, and when he did talk, his throat would seize up and he could only choke out a few words at a time; at other times long strings of sentences gushed out of him like a dam broken free. Occasionally he found himself snarling out in anger or clutching at his mug in distress, but Frigga never stopped listening. He had barely gotten started– there was still so much left to tell– when, for the briefest second, Frigga broke eye contact for the first time since he started speaking and it threw him off course.

"That's... odd," Frigga said, frowning at the window behind him. "That doesn't happen here."

Outside, the plants that had been full of life and vitality had withered and a greyness was sweeping over the ground like a slow-moving wind. Moments later, a figure appeared over the horizon line and the closer it got, the darker everything became.

Before long the 'it' became a 'she'.

She bore Loki's colours and instead of a horned helm she wore a helm with antler-like structures that cast strange shadows as she walked closer along the path.

Some of the other warriors had noticed her presence too and those that recognised her backed away with visible fear and distress. It was a strange sight to see the fabled warriors forget their weaponry and battle rage and instead act with something unnervingly akin to fear. Just as Loki was pausing to consider the implications of exactly who the figure could possibly be, there was a loud knock at the door.

The sound of laughter and merriment was replaced by a thick silence.

Nobody answered the door but most of the warriors were on their feet, as if unsure of whether to hide or attack.

There was another knock, followed by an exasperated voice.

"I do hope that you do not think to fool me into believing the halls of Valhalla are currently vacant with your silence," she said. "If you mighty warriors need consoling then fine, I shall give you my word that you need not fear." Her voice rang clearly through the hall despite her being outside. "I am not seeking entrance or attempting to siege you." She sounded amused at the idea. "I only wish to speak to one of you."

There was another silence and then one of the Vanir warriors called out, her voice wavering. "Which one?"

"Loki."

Loki tensed and Frigga lay a hand on his shoulder.

"I've been reliably informed that you do have a Loki among you," the voice from outside said.

The warriors had not yet noticed him but there were a few Loki recognised. Before Loki could respond or react or begin to even consider what his next course of action should be, Frigga intervened.

"Do you give your word that he will remain unharmed?" Frigga asked.

"Yes, yes. I will not harm him."

Some of the warriors appeared to have cottoned on as to Loki's identity and he could feel their eyes upon him. Would he be able to feel pain despite being dead?

Loki rose from his chair.

"Loki," Frigga whispered, "I can only attempt to guess at her identity, but I think it would be wiser to see what she wants rather than deny her."

"I suppose any peace and merriment I might have been granted was always bound to be cut short," Loki muttered.

"Loki," Frigga scolded quietly as she walked with him towards the door, the warriors clearing a path for them. "You must not be so cynical."

"Shouldn't I? It is, after all, only a matter of hours after I have arrived in Valhalla that the person who I can only assume is the Queen of Hel journeys here to specifically ask for me. Forgive me if I do not interpret that as a positive omen."

Frigga remained tight-lipped and opened one of the great doors before they stepped through it.

"You took your time," the stranger outside said to Loki by way of greeting.

"What do you want of my son?" Frigga demanded, closing the door behind her.

The stranger turned her attention to Frigga, her indifferent expression suddenly cold and icy. "I didn't realise he needed his mother's," her mouth curled around the word, "consent to speak to strangers."

"I don't," Loki said at the same time Frigga made the same assertion.

"Wonderful." She ignored Frigga entirely. "I must admit, I had expected more of you."

Loki was taken aback. "And what exactly had you expected of me?"

The woman in front of him smiled but there wasn't anything pleasant about it. "Well, cowering behind your mother's skirts hardly constitutes as living up to the family name. But I was always taught not to forget my formalities. I haven't introduced myself, although I haven't exactly aimed to be subtle…"

"Hela," Loki said. "Queen of Hel."

Although how exactly the Queen of Hel had found her way to Valhalla, Loki had no idea.

"Yes," Hela replied, smirking as if she knew something they didn't. "That's it."

"What do you want of my son?" Frigga asked again but Hela ignored her entirely.

"I suppose you must be curious…" Hela said, making it clear that she was speaking to Loki and Loki alone by angling her body towards him.

"I am," Loki replied and instinct told him to have patience instead of pushing the topic.

"I want to bring you back," Hela informed him, as if she was granting him a huge favour.

"Back? Back where?"

"Back to life. But I have a few conditions, of course. I'm a busy woman and I have many things to do so I shall get to the point; I have a proposition for you. Your life in exchange for a favour."

Loki frowned. "What could possibly want from me?"

"I don't suppose you've often had the misfortune of a man's unwanted attention?"

"I'm not unfamiliar with the concept," Loki replied and had to work to not intone it as he would a question.

"I'll be more specific: have you received unwanted attention by a man who goes by the name of Thanos?"

"While so much as being in his peripheral attention is far more unwanted attention than I'd ever care to receive from him, I suppose that I would class–"

"If I knew you would be so pedantic I would have elaborated earlier. Allow me to explain: Thanos has been attempting to woo me for years now. He appears to be under the impression that I lack the company of souls in Hel and thinks that increasing those numbers will impress me or something equally as ridiculous." She rolled her eyes. "The reality is that with each gift he gives me I have yet another soul to accommodate for." Her features darkened. "I have little patience for a child screaming out for attention. He presumes too much. But if I ignore his intolerable presence for much longer my domain will soon be filled with more souls than it can handle at such short notice." Her eyes glittered with malice. "If he presumes to demand my attention then I will deliver it to him in worse ways than he is capable of imagining. I may finally grant his soul entrance into my realm but I will personally ensure that his soul will be screaming for my mercy before long."

Loki chose his next sentence very carefully.

"Whilst the idea of his soul screaming for mercy is incredibly appealing, I'm afraid I'm not entirely sure what it is that you require me alive for."

"You're a good boy," Hela said in a manner that wasn't intended to be condescending but was entirely condescending. "Unfortunately, I cannot touch the living. If I could, then I would have dealt with my little problem entirely independently. This is where you come in. I want you to kill him for me."

"Me?" Loki let out a bark of laughter. "You stand outside a hall full of the legendary fallen warriors of children's tales and yet you called my name? Forgive me if I question your judgement but why would choose to lay your trust in the words of a lying trickster when the mightiest of honourable and honest fighters are only on the other side of this door?"

"It is not a warrior I need to kill him," she said. "I need someone more than yet." Then she gave a grin so fully-fledged that her teeth gleamed. "A lying trickster is exactly what I need."

Loki blinked at her. "And if I don't kill him?"

"If you break your word after I restore you back to life I will show your soul no mercy when you die."

Loki frowned. "That sounds too simple – what else is there?"

"Oh, yes," she said as if she had suddenly remembered something. "If you don't do it then your brother will die. Amongst potential billions of others. But he's the only one who you would truly care about."

"Loki," Frigga said, "you should consider this."

"But I've only just got back to you–"

"I can wait. You have a chance at life again. True life. Life in this realm isn't the quite the same. Do not let me be the reason you stay dead, I would hate myself for it. I want you to live."

"Even if it means fighting... him?"

Frigga cupped Loki's cheek.

"It is not my decision to make, I can only implore you to–"

"You should listen to your mother," Hela sneered. "She has an uncanny knack for persuasion." Hela spoke with such venom that Frigga stared at her in outright confusion.

Loki pressed his lips together.

"If we are to make a bargain I need the full terms," he said finally.

"The terms are this: your life for his. I will heal your wound and restore your life force if you agree. There is no time limit, but the time before you kill him is borrowed, and when you die you'll spend that time in my realm. Think of it as an incentive to not squander time. The instant you finish him is the instant you are no longer in debt to me. Only after he is no longer breathing will your life be your own again."

"What happens if somebody or something else kills him before I do?"

Her lips twitched with amusement. "Fine." She held up her hands. "I shall even add in a futile clause for you. If somebody or something else kills him before you do then you won't owe me a debt but your soul will not reside in Valhalla when you die."

"I do not like that term."

Hela shrugged.

"I've got to ensure that you stay motivated and act quickly somehow. Maybe you shouldn't have forced me to invent what would happen in that scenario. But it hardly matters. I doubt that any person or thing currently alive in the entirety of the universe has the resources to kill Thanos."

"Then how is it that you expect me to?"

"By the having the right resources. I shall even gift you with a favour. No – I'll be generous. Two favours. One clue is the Infinity Stones. You know of the gems he is after, yes? Good. If you can locate the ones he hasn't managed to find yet then it shall put you at a great advantage. My other favour to you will grant you a personal audience with the Norns themselves. I daresay they'll be more informed than I am."

Loki's mouth fell open.

"The Norns? How could they possibly have a stake in this?"

"They are moderately concerned about the future of the universe and Thanos's growing potential to kill them."

"But no one has seen the Norns in who knows how many millennia, and they do not even reside within the Nine Realms anymore."

"If he does manage to kill them it might even impress me. However, I should warn you not to expect the Norns to give straightforward answers. They do enjoy going on and on about threads of fate." Hela's expression was one of distaste. "Excessively. But as I said, if you want any more details you shall have to ask them yourself."

"I will bear that in mind."

When Hela smiled it was neither kind nor cruel. It was victorious.

"Then we have a deal?" she asked.

Loki's eyes darted between her and his mother. His mother said nothing aloud, but her eyes were encouraging.

"We do," Loki agreed, holding out a hand to seal the deal with a shake.

"Oh, and one more thing," Hela said with a mockery of sweetness, "do send the Allfather my love if you get the chance."

Then the Queen of the Dead grasped his hand in hers.


	2. Chapter 2

The instant Hela let go of Loki's hand, all of it – Hel, Loki's mother, Valhalla – was gone.

Instead, he was lying on his back and the winds had swept a layer of grit over his body. He sat up with a start, gasping for breath, hand clutching at his chest. There was no hole this time, nor any blood. The flesh was entirely intact and only a scar was left behind as evidence of his injury.

Loki was unsteady as he clambered to his feet.

When the winds picked up and huge raindrops fell, it was as if Svartalfheim itself was spitting on him. He had to keep his eyes squinted to avoid the black sand from blowing into them as he scoured the surrounding lands for any sign of shelter. There was little to be found apart from wide open plains.

His destination was obvious – back to the path between Svartalfheim and Asgard. There was little he could do while upon this realm but he knew Asgard better than any other realm. He knew not only its people, its strengths, and its weaknesses but also how to influence those within it, how to trick those within it, and how to operate within its most powerful circles.

Asgard was no barren moon; it was much better defended than that.

Slowly, as he walked, a plan began to form and take hold.

He would walk into the cave entrance as himself and exit as one of Asgard's guards. And the best part of that plan? The best part was that he wouldn't even have to utter a single lie. Or, as he thought about it, perhaps that was the worst part.

* * *

"Loki," Odin said after he'd dismissed the other guards. It was not a question, nor an accusation.

Loki tilted his head downwards.

"Yes, my king," Loki confirmed. How he loved double meanings.

"Have you found his body?"

Loki shook his head.

"Why have you returned without his body?" Odin was tight-lipped as he rose from the throne.

This was wrong, this was not an eventually that Loki had been prepared for and anticipated. He had to think fast.

"We searched for hours–"

"Do you think only searching for a few hours is good enough? He was my son."

Loki's mouth fell open. How was it that himself, the Jotun relic, was declared as a son by the very man who would have beheaded him for his crimes that were less than half of what Thor did? Had someone managed to impose as the Allfather before he'd gotten the chance?

"You would still call him your son? After everything?"

"I cannot deny that we did not share the same blood. But it was myself and his mother who raised him and none of his actions can erase that."

Something seemed wrong. Loki could feel his plan slipping around him, or perhaps it was himself who had become entangled and trapped within it.

"Is that so?" Loki didn't mean to let himself say that; it would be too risky, too foolish. No guard with a healthy regard for his life would be as presumptuous as to question the word of the Allfather as he just did.

Then Odin looked at him – not at the illusion of the guard that Loki wore – but right at him. Thor had been wrong about many things a long time ago when he named his father an old man and a fool, but he had been right about one of those two things; Odin had grown weary and weak in his old age but he had never been a fool. Loki braced himself for Odin's inevitable attack, to have to haul out magic and dodge blasts from Gungnir, but they never came.

"Loki," Odin said again, softer this time. "I do not know how you are here but despite it all, I find myself glad that you are alive."

Loki's hand tightened around one of his throwing daggers.

"I hope you'll understand if I am having a bit of trouble believing you. It was you, after all, who if you had your way my head would have been removed from my shoulders."

"It would have been a fair sentence for your actions," came Odin's terse reply.

The illusion of the guard fell and Loki was left staring outraged.

"What I did hardly compares to–"

"I am tired of this dance," Odin said, sinking back onto the throne as if this was another court matter.

"As am I." Loki's words were clipped. He flung a dagger in line with an artery in Odin's throat but before it hit, Odin clutched Gungnir and a golden aura appeared around him that deflected the blade. Loki threw himself to one side and one of the Gungnir's blasts erupted at the place he had stood a short second ago.

Loki aimed another at the hand that clutched the sceptre, knowing that if he could just manage to separate Odin from Gungnir then the rest of it would be comparatively easy. But the ward remained strong and protected Odin well. His dagger fell uselessly to the floor.

"How do you wish for this to play out, Loki?" Odin spoke as if the effort of maintaining the ward was nothing. "When you fail to defeat me, what do you wish to happen? How and why did you return here? What plots are you hatching?"

Loki pressed his treacherous lips together and said nothing.

"Have you returned to spite me? To spit the gift of Valhalla back in my face?"

"Let's not pretend that was generosity on my behalf; it was Frigga you sought to please."

Odin ignored him.

"Or are there more to your plans than mere spite? I see no outcome that does not end in you roaming free so tell me; did you find yourself craving the solitary confinement of your cell? If it is Asgard's prison you seek, you needn't attack me. If it is the end of my life that you seek then you cannot have it."

Loki left an illusion of himself stood in front of the Allfather whilst simultaneously rendering his true form invisible and he crept behind the old man.

"Why not?" He whispered behind Odin's ear and reached through the aura to twist at the arm holding Gungnir. The ward scolded his flesh and caused Loki to let out a cry of pain. With a jerk of the arm, Odin sent Loki reeling backwards.

"Because, Loki," Odin said, "you possess neither the ability nor the conviction to defeat me."

"You believe me to not have the conviction to end your life? Should I be flattered that you think so highly of me? Or should I be dismayed at being so greatly underestimated?" Loki took a step forward in a calculated predatory movement. "Or are you trying to goad me into proving you wrong and making a rash move?"

"Your mother," Odin watched as the mention of her caused an involuntary flinch, "died believing that you are still redeemable. The moment you kill your own father is the day that you can never be redeemed."

Loki grinned widely, showing all of his teeth.

"Then I have nothing to lose."

"You may have killed your own birth father but you never thought of Laufey as your father, did you boy? He was not the man who raised you. He is not the father who is sitting in front of you. It matters little how many times I wish it not to be true, the fact remains that I am still your father."

"Oh, you had a hand in raising me." Loki spoke quietly, his rage seeping into his voice like ice and fire all at once. "But you were always a king above a father."

"Does this mean that you have purposefully forgotten every time I spoke to you as a man does to his son? Every time I listened to the frets of a child and did not dismiss them as idle? Every time we sat together as a family?" Odin demanded.

"You appear to be under the impression that these memories are… sweet. You forget how much lies taint things." Loki gestured to himself as a prime example. "No matter your claims, it is hardly a coincidence that since I learned of my true heritage you have made no attempt to establish anything remotely resembling fatherly behaviour. Once you could no longer lie to placate me you were happy to lose all paternal attachments to me–"

"Tell me; do you truly believe your own words or are you merely using them to excuse your behaviour?"

"I could ask you the same question."

"Are you stalling, Loki?"

Loki masked his doubt by wearing a false smile and let out a light laugh. "What reason could I possibly have to want to stall this?"

"Because you cannot bring yourself to kill me," Odin said simply. "I've known you as my son for almost as long as you have been alive and I know how this scenario will play out. We will argue like this for hours, achieving and resolving nothing until you inevitably fail to slaughter me when you consider me to be in a moment of weakness. Or... I could drop the ward and bring the moment you lash out into occurrence much sooner. You always did have a flair for the dramatic, Loki, but I am afraid this will end rather anticlimactically when you realise the truth of my words."

Loki stared in disbelief.

"I will drop the ward and let you take your best shot." Odin nodded to one of Loki's throwing knives lying on the floor. "You have an accurate throwing hand, as I recall. And I guarantee that I will be perfectly safe."

Loki raised a hand, fingers shaking and gripping the handle of one of his throwing daggers. "I am not so willing to walk into your trap." Instead, Loki brought up the knife so that it bit into the skin of his own throat. "Let us test the truth of your words, shall we? That's what you claim you want." The tremor in his voice was more audible than he would have liked. "If you truly consider yourself as my father, you will end this by dropping Gungnir." He swallowed, hard, then added, "if not, it will hardly be a great loss to you to lose someone you have no familial attachments to."

"Loki, you must have only just returned from Valhalla, be reasonable–" Odin began to move towards him and Loki reflexively dug the blade further into his skin.

"The greatest liar there is," Loki accused, eyes brimming with rage and his face contorted into a snarl as he drew the blade backwards.

Odin threw Gungnir to the ground. "Loki – please."

Loki stared at the sceptre lying on the ground and then at Odin. "Thor was right after all." He barked a laugh. "You are a fool."

A vision of Loki, rendered with the blade still at his throat remained in place whilst the true Loki proceeded to move towards the sceptre.

"Loki," Odin said, reaching towards the illusion, "put the knife down." Odin's breaths were laboured and it seemed to require more effort than it should have done for him to move. The Odinsleep. It could not have come at a better time. "Your mother would never forgive me."

Loki gripped Gungnir tightly and pointed it at the back of the man who would only spare for the wrong reasons. The sceptre was shaking. Loki took a deep breath and prepared to deliver the blow. The Allfather had reached the illusion now, fingers stretching towards the hand gripping the dagger. Then Odin's fingers went straight through it.

Odin stiffened and braced himself.

Now. Loki had to do it now.

An irritate snarl ripped out of Loki's throat and he proceeded to clobber the Allfather around the back of the head. It was a blunt and inelegant blow but Odin slumped to the floor, lying unconscious all the same.

It took only a gesture of the hand to adopt the Allfather's skin and turn Odin invisible. He blinked at the space where his father's body lay. He should be feeling something more. He should be delighted, filled with relish, triumphant with the knowledge that he defeated the most powerful being in the Nine Realms.

The memory of the last time he witnessed Odin fall into the Odinsleep lingered like an unwanted headache.

* * *

The vaults of Asgard were each the size of a courtroom, with a combination of hundreds of powerful objects, ancient artefacts, and relics with both known and unknown uses forming labyrinths to walk through. Loki could feel the prickling pull of the Tesseract, stronger and more persistent than it had been when he had been confined to his cell. Loki shook it off; he'd survived for over a thousand years without it. He didn't need it, no matter how much the Tesseract tried to convince him otherwise.

The Tesseract was hidden well, but Loki had the advantage of being able to feel it pulling at the edges of his mind. Its whispers became stronger the closer he got.

It sat on a tall pedestal, its glowing blue muted by the metallic golden hues of the surrounding objects and walls. Loki grasped it and his flesh felt oddly united with it, as if they should have never parted. The glow of the Tesseract was almost making him giddy, but the elation was of a different brand than the last time he held it. This time he had a higher degree of control and deliberation and the Tesseract brought his thoughts more clarity rather than escalation. It shocked him to notice how much of a difference the change in circumstances had made.

When his breathing returned to a normal pace, he discarded the illusions and stared down at the frail old man lying on the ground. He curled Odin's fingers around one handle, grasped the other himself and closed his eyes.

Loki had braced himself for the pain but his bracing had been inadequate. The power of the Tesseract stole through his veins in a rush that was neither hot nor cold but it burned all the same. It was raw energy and it had been so long since it last touched him.

Once the pain was over normalcy felt sweet, if normalcy could be described as standing on a carpet of fog so thick that he couldn't see his own boots. The air was more than cold; it was a crisp sting that felt as if it punctured his lungs with each breath he drew in. Odin's skin had already lost its colour but Loki knew that it would be longer before he himself would succumb to the cold.

Loki made slow progress with dragging Odin's body along the ground. The old man was heavy and the last time the two of them travelled to Niflheim had been under very different circumstances. Loki had still been a boy and the purpose was purely educational. Odin had dressed both him and Thor in rare enchanted clothing that would prevent their bodies from freezing so long as they did not remain too long. As they walked, Odin pointed out and named each of the frozen statues of ancient expelled warriors. As a boy, Loki had clung to his father's hand for fear that the fog was concealing monsters underneath it. As a man, Loki was the monster it concealed.

A thick layer of frost had grown over the Allfather's skin and clothing. Most men Loki would have trusted the harshness of the realm enough to leave a foe behind but Odin was no ordinary man and it was not a risk Loki had any desire to take. Loki would wait. He would wait until Odin was indistinguishable from the rest of the cast out warriors and only when Odin was no more than another frozen fable would Loki return to Asgard.

Odin was slumped on the ground, the one arm stretched out from Loki dragging him having frozen entirely solid and the rest of his body not far behind. Loki positioned him in the midst of a cluster of warriors and the scene looked like a scattering of life-sized board game pieces, all with Odin at the centre of it. Some of the statues still bore weapons, their frozen faces contorted with rage and their arms raised to strike while others were on their knees, eternally begging kings long since dead to spare them of their fate.

The image of Odin, still and stiff and unmoving with one hand forever reaching out towards Loki lingered long after he teleported away and it was an image that haunted him as much as it delighted him.

 **Authors note: the rest of this is up on A03 under the same username. I will not be posting any more of this on this site.**


End file.
